Welcome to my E-Learning Blog. My name is Kelly Wilkins and this is my first term of Uni, so it's a little daunting. I am an at home mum to my son, who is 14 mths. I am studying B Aarts but wanting to do B Learning Management when it is offered next year.
I am looking foward to chatting with you all about the course and sharing opinions on subject matter.

Monday, August 17, 2009

PowerPoint Buttons

I have previously expressed how I feel PowerPoints are a great tool for the Classroom, however I am unsure that I would use them for creating Quizzes. I found that Classmarker was a much better site for creating quizzes for the reasons stated in the relevant Blog Post. ( see posting named Quizzes)Click hereto take the Quiz that I created.

The purpose of the exercise we were given was to use active buttons in PowerPoint presentations.When I was exploring the example given to us, it asked us to make a change to the PowerPoint by un-ticking an option relating to mouse clicks. Because this PowerPoint was 'read-only', I could not make this change, as when I tried, it would revert back to the original when I viewed the presentation, and if I tried to save the changes I made to the presentation, it would not allow me as it was 'read-only'. I understood the gist of what the instructions were allowing me to achieve, however this is an issue that we would have to fix before presenting these kinds of tasks to our students.

I believe that these buttons do have a great purpose in PowerPoint presentations, but not for Quizzes. Using the Hyperlink feature, I can create links to websites that may compliment the information I am presenting. This is a great way to give our students access to further readings. In their report on ICT's, Blackmoreetal ( 2005) concur that ICT's "provided students access to databases, website and discussion that were previously unavailable." Not only does the use of these buttons provide students with information they may not have previously been able to access, but it also allows teachers to monitor the information that their students are being given. This is a useful way of presenting information to younger students, however, I believe that older students in high school and beyond should not be restricted in such ways. They should be encouraged to seek answers our for themselves as this encourages them to be life long learners.

2 comments:

Yes I agree that ClassMarker is a slicker, easy and more automated tool for creating quizzes, however I can see great application for having quizzes or questions resident in a PowerPoint slide show, it could create a nice flow of Slide 1, 2, 3 (content) Slide 4 (quiz to consolidate knowledge) Slide 5, 6, 7 (content) etc, etc.

By the way, congrats on you blog. I have very much enjoyed sharing in your 'words of wisdom' and obvious effort.

I agree, Powerpoint will be a great tool to use for quizzes in the context you have suggested, as you can add so many more aspects to them. I am a huge fan of PowerPoint as I found it very engaging as a student in Highschool.Thanks Tony, your blog has also been a very entertaining and witty piece of reading. I am sure you will receive great marks!